Under the Windings of the Sea
by Nancy Brown
Summary: The hero, having made his peace with the dead, must now do the same with the living.


The scent of lilacs hung in the air like a presence, almost  
a being of its own whispering nonsense tales to the child within  
his soul. He'd never pictured the owners of this place in a  
scene of lilacs. Roses, perhaps, heady with ancient passion, or  
even lilies nodding their heads in remembrance of times best left  
dead. Yet sure enough, as he walked down the road towards the  
farm, nearly enclosed in a tunnel of oaks and maples, he espied  
well-tended lilac bushes in neat order interspersed among the  
trunks.  
Some things had changed.  
His pace slackened as he approached the main house. It had  
been almost a century since last he'd seen either of them. They  
had parted on good terms, but again, things did change. Now that  
he was rather inclined to live, being struck by an arrow tipped  
with iron would be the height of, well, irony.  
There was movement just out of his range of vision. A  
child, or at least what he presumed was a child, zipped past him  
and into the house before he could draw breath. His shout formed  
instead into a smile, as another head poked out of the door, eyes  
darting towards him in razor-sharp appraisal, before registering  
him as a known.  
"Hello, Stranger," he said, opening his arms to indicate his  
total lack of weaponry. Of course, when one could build a bomb  
less than a millimeter in diameter, even a thorough examination  
wouldn't reveal it; fortunately for them both, he had no such  
bomb, and no such intentions. This time.  
"Indeed. What brings you here?" The other man's accent  
hadn't faded in the years since they'd first met. He found it  
easy, comforting.  
"Believe it or not, I've dropped by to say hello."  
"I don't believe it." The man's familiar face was drawn  
closed in a frown as he stepped outside and closed the door behind  
him. In a window on the second floor, two round faces peeped out  
from the curtains.  
He affected not to notice that the other man's arms were  
covered to his elbows in what was possibly flour, but it was  
more difficult to ignore the smudges of the same on his cheeks.  
It appeared he'd been cooking. Nonetheless, his eyes were  
bright, his shoulders broad, his entire body radiating health and  
good cheer. Not bad for a man pushing fourteen centuries.  
"It's good to see you, Macbeth."  
He snorted. "You used to lie better than that, Xanatos."  
Still his gaze gave away nothing.  
"I'm not lying. I've changed. I want to explore what I can  
do with this immortality of mine. That includes talking to the  
only other immortals I know."  
Macbeth watched him closely, distrust still gathered closely  
around him. "Perhaps." Then his face broke into a grin, and he  
took his hand. "It emis/em good to see you, too. We'd thought  
maybe you'd finally dropped off the face of the earth."  
"I did. Went all the way to Mars. But this is home."  
"Aye." They spent a silent moment, then, "Come around back.  
I'll make some tea. We can catch up on the past ninety years."

* * *

David looked around as he stirred sugar into his tea. "What  
brought you two to France? The last I'd heard, you were back in  
Scotland living it up."  
"We were. We must have spent sixty years in that village.  
Then the town decided to move, lock, stock and barrel, to another  
planet, somewhere in the Caldos system. We thought about joining  
them, but as you said, this is home. We'd spent time in Paris  
before, and one day, we went for a long ride and quite by  
accident, found this place for sale. It's small, it's quiet, and  
no one bothers with us much. We started taking in the children  
about ten years ago. It's so much brighter around the place with  
young ones about."  
"I was going to ask ... "  
He laughed, a touch of sadness in the sound. "No, no  
halflings in this bunch. I've met a few hybrids, and I suppose  
we could go that route if we chose, but I think we're both done  
with having our own children." He paused. "In fact ... "  
"In fact," said a familiar voice behind him, "we've just  
received word from one of them."  
He turned. Dominique, if she was still using that name by  
day, stood at rest behind him, her muscles twitching just  
so beneath the cotton blouse she wore in the early Spring  
warmth. She wouldn't attack first, but he would regret it if she  
had to fight back. Understandable.  
Again he held out his hands. After a moment, she took them,  
pulling him up and into an awkward embrace. "We thought you were  
dead."  
"Funny thing about immortality," he said, giving her a  
gentle squeeze, "it eliminates that death problem. As you should  
know."  
"So it does." They parted. She poured herself a cup, and  
spooned three heaping mounds of sugar into it. The expression on  
her face as she sipped was pure bliss, and he hid his smile at  
the sight.  
"So," she said after making a healthy dent in her tea, "Why  
have you come?"  
"Can't a man visit his two oldest friends without a reason?"  
"No," he said, as she said simultaneously, "Not you."  
"Fair enough," he said. "I did come primarily to see the  
two of you, though."  
"And the other reason?" She would grant him no quarter. He  
knew her that well.  
"I want to wake up the clones."  
Only as the words came out did the plan crystallize. The  
thought had been in the back of his mind for years, always to be  
batted away again. How could he justify putting those poor  
creatures through the misery of life when he could only barely  
persuade himself to wake up each day?  
Life had melted, shifted, become less of a burden. Now he  
wanted to see what it had to offer, maybe make up for lost time.  
The gargoyle clones, poor confused shadows of their originals,  
were his responsibility for a thousand reasons. Bringing them  
back would be a way of making things up to spirits long at rest,  
as he had so recently set Fox and Alexander to rest inside  
himself.  
This was assuming the pair before him went along with it.  
"No," she said simply. She stood up, taking her teacup with  
her, and went into the house. Macbeth looked after her, then  
turned back to him.  
"Are you sure that's wise?"  
"It's something I have to do," he replied. From within the  
house, he heard a scream of rage. "Um ... Has she learned how  
to control her temper, or should I start running now?"  
"Stay. She'll shout and tramp around, and then she'll feel  
better. The children know to stay out of her way when she's in  
one of her moods, and she knows better than to take it out on  
me."  
"I heard that!" came a shout. The door flew open, and she  
stomped back out, her eyes blazing. "How can you even  
contemplate waking them, waking emhim/em? Nothing's changed. You  
still want to die, don't you?"  
He held up a hand. "You created them as much as Sevarius  
and Thailog did."  
"And now they're dead. Let them sleep! If you tell me  
where you're keeping them, I'll happily send them to hell for  
you."  
"My love," said Macbeth, taking her by the shoulders. "Let  
it go."  
"He tried to kill you, too," she spat. "Doesn't the thought  
of revenge hold the least interest for you?"  
"If it did, I wouldna be sleeping beside you every morning."  
She sighed, watching her husband's face. Finally, she  
rested her head against his broad chest. "I'm a little on edge.  
I'm sorry."  
"It's all right," he said in a soothing voice.  
David had quietly observed the couple; something Demona had  
said earlier worried at the edges of his mind. "You said you'd  
heard from one of your children?"  
"Angela. She was in Wales went she sent the message. She's  
looking for the descendents of the clan, and wanted to know if  
we'd seen them recently."  
He sat back in his chair, holding his cup in his hands like  
a child might hold a bird, too tightly. "She was on Avalon when  
the gates closed." He knew it, but had to state it, see  
Macbeth's confirming nod, for the rest of the knowledge to sink  
into him.  
The gates had been opened. Oberon would again allow his  
Children and the gargoyles trapped on the island out into the  
World. He may even have sent them out as he had that first time  
so long ago. Angela was back. His mother-in-law would again be  
able to play her games with the mortals inhabiting this and a  
myriad of other worlds. And if Oberon hadn't ended his miserable  
life, even His Majesty's most favored servant would be free to  
roam the World again.  
"Damn."  
"So you see," she said, "you have your choice of magical  
beings from whom to chose. Ask one of them."  
"I have nothing to do with any of Oberon's kind." And never  
will again.  
"Then you have a problem." She started putting the tea  
things away. The afternoon was growing late; it would not be  
long before her transformation. "It is however not my problem.  
Drop us a letter if you find a way around it."  
"Love," said Macbeth, placing a hand on her wrist, "don't be  
so hasty."  
She removed his hand. "If I never see Thailog again it will  
be a century too soon."  
"Perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement?"  
"Name your price." Now that he knew what he wanted to do,  
he would not let anything stand in his way. Already he felt much  
like his old self. They would see who dealt whom.  
Macbeth named the cost for their assistance.

* * *

The hulking statue shimmered and faded from view. It hadn't  
been moved far, merely to a shuttlecraft parked on the wide lawn  
above them. The rest of the gargoyles remained in the same  
unknowing poses they'd had since their "deaths" nearly four  
hundred years before. Five lives in exchange for Thailog's  
statue; it was a hard bargain. He's tried talking them from it,  
knew Thailog was his responsibility even more so than the rest.  
He'd been the second clone brought forth by the hardworking men  
and women of Gen-U-Tech, and easily the most damaged of all the  
creatures made in Sevarius' lab. Sotanax had had problems,  
certainly, but that clone's short life had not come close in tragedy  
to that of his second child.  
He'd hoped to make it better for Thailog this way; the thought  
of his being subject to whatever whims this pair had for him (for  
some reason, he had nightmarish pictures of their using him as a  
hat rack for truly hideous floral sun bonnets) made him uneasy.  
Once Demona had heard the deal, she could not be shaken from the  
notion of having her former lover in the house to do with as she pleased.  
She stood before him now, poring over scribbled notes on a  
piece of real paper. According to her, datapads simply didn't  
work as well as the written word. Macbeth was inspecting the  
statues for signs of any decay. As their predecessors had been,  
they were remarkably free from erosion, even after such a long,  
brutal time.  
"All right," she said, simply, folding her wings around her.  
They'd waited for moonrise; the time had come.  
He lit the five candles surrounding the gargoyles, as  
Macbeth stepped nimbly from the circle. He moved in a counter-  
clockwise pattern, repeating the mantra she'd taught him earlier  
in the afternoon: life from within, stone into skin. It was  
stupid, even she admitted, but it would get him into a proper  
state of mind.  
When the candles were lit, he took the bronze bowl from  
their work table. The scent of dried flowers caught him as the  
fresh ones had when he'd gone to the farm two weeks before.  
Macbeth took a handful of the stuff, and made a clockwise circuit  
on the outside perimeter of the candles, sprinkling the flower-  
dust and murmuring his own chant as he went.  
Demona picked up the silver bowl next, and spoke in  
bastardized Latin as she held her hand over it. The contents,  
liquids whose identities he really didn't want to know, gurgled  
and bubbled. She stepped within the circle, then brushed the  
liquids onto the foreheads of the four males.  
"All of them," he said.  
She scowled, then placed a few grudging drops on the  
forehead of the female, Delilah.  
She raised her arms to the sky. Already, he could see the  
moon just beginning to peer through the one window in the tower.  
Despite the candlelight, the touch of it upon her wings seemed to  
fill her with ten times the brightness as before.  
She shouted something he could not understand, and became  
too bright to be seen. He shielded his eyes, and when he dared  
look again, could see the glow surrounding the clones. It was  
working!  
"Now!" she yelled. "The golden bowl."  
He picked it up. It appeared empty, but looks could be  
deceiving. She'd called it a matter of faith. He'd called it a  
matter of some gases being invisible. He stepped into the  
circle, holding the bowl before him.  
dear god  
his mind stopped  
there was  
brightness  
yes brightness  
the clones were light  
and dark  
and alive  
and trapped  
stone and flesh  
he wanted to scream  
he wanted to laugh  
so this was what  
being within life  
itself  
demona said  
breath it  
drink it  
feel the life  
he sucked it down  
not air not gas  
lifeforce uncluttered  
he was the moonlight  
so was she  
this must be like  
what heaven is  
now breathe out  
she commanded begged  
breathe upon them  
give them the life  
he breathed  
he gasped  
over each one  
lifeforce from him  
into them  
stone crumbled inside  
take my hand  
said the one outside  
step out with me  
no come inside  
it's so beautiful  
go you idiot she said  
he was tugged through  
... and fell out onto the cold hard ground, still aching to  
go back inside that magical place. "Please," he whispered.  
Demona stepped out from the circle, shaking moondust from  
her wings. She snapped at him, "You could have ruined the spell,  
you fool. You could have killed us all, immortality be damned!"  
"I'm sorry," he muttered, his memory of the circle dulling  
with every moment. "It was so beautiful."  
"So is hemlock," said Macbeth, and he helped him up.  
Demona took the final object from the table, a thin iron  
dagger, and touched it to the edge of the circle. The glow  
flared and collapsed.  
Five rather confused-looking gargoyles stood in the middle  
of a ring of burnt-out candles and flower petals.  
"What - what happened?" asked Brooklyn's clone. Oh yes,  
Malibu.  
"You turned to stone when the decay completed," he answered.  
"We woke you up."  
"We're not sick anymore?" asked Broadway's clone.  
He looked to Demona, who responded, "Probably not." She  
grabbed her bowls and stacked them, then turned to her husband.  
"We're finished here."  
He nodded. "Xanatos, good luck with your children."  
"Aren't you going to stay?"  
"We have children of our own to raise," he said, and bowed in  
a genteel fashion to Delilah. "Welcome back to the world."  
And they left.  
"Hello," said Hudson's clone.  
"Where are Maggie and Talon?" asked Delilah.  
"Are we in the castle?" asked Lexington's clone.  
"I'm hungry," said Malibu, and Broadway's double nodded  
eagerly.  
Welcome to the world, indeed, he thought, and went to work.

* * *

Angela hadn't yet sent him a letter regarding the young  
gargoyles; it remained to be seen whether she would correspond  
with her mother again, and if Demona would tell her about them.  
In the meantime, all the duties of parenting had fallen to him.  
He'd slowly introduced the clones to the knowledge they were no  
longer in the time they'd known, but centuries later. They'd  
been only a few months old when they had been forced into stone  
hibernation for so long; as children did, they adjusted with  
greater ease than the first clan had.  
He could not help but compare them to their predecessors,  
although he knew it was wrong to do so. Each time he worked with  
Brentwood, he would again try to introduce him to the newest feat  
of technological magic, always to be met by Brent's near-blank  
stare. Hollywood was just as much unlike his own genetic  
precursor: where Broadway had been a gourmand, Hollywood was just  
as happy with peanut butter and jelly. On anything.  
The others were the same, and he felt a strong sting of regret  
at that. He'd somehow hoped that bringing the clones to life would  
ease the hurt of the loss of the other gargoyles, that Malibu might  
remind him of Brooklyn, or Burbank of Hudson. Instead, he found  
them to be pale mockeries of the others. If he compared them.  
If he pushed the other images from his mind, a different picture  
took shape. No, Delilah had neither Demona's strength nor Elisa's  
courage, but she had a calm down-to-earth sense that both her  
predecessors had lacked. Brentwood couldn't touch a computer without  
sparks flying, but he drew extraordinary pictures of midnight  
landscapes with crayons. Hollywood could sing like an angel when he  
wasn't too shy. Malibu was one of the best listeners he'd ever known.  
Burbank's green thumb set every plant in the castle to blossom in the  
days and weeks following their rebirth. No, they weren't the living  
incarnations of the others, but when he stopped trying to see them as  
such, they were five wonderful little people.  
April rolled into May, with still no word from any of the rest  
of the gargoyles save Demona, whose letters were always brief and to  
the point. Without bother from the outside world, their lives settled  
into patterns, and he observed those patterns from a careful distance,  
relearning small steps towards joy with every new discovery.  
He could almost convince himself he was at peace within  
himself.

* * *

"Mr. Xanatos?"  
He'd been sitting by the fire, poring over a datapad filled  
with figures. He had other people to run his business through a  
dozen different channels; only a few knew his real name, and none  
knew the true significance of it. All they knew, and all they  
had to know, was that he was paying them far more than their  
worth not to be nosy. But he still liked to look over things  
once in a while. It kept his people on their toes.  
"Yes, Delilah?"  
She minced over to his chair, and sat gracefully on the  
floor before him. He smiled at her; she was the most advanced of  
the five, and had fallen into the position of leader. When they  
went anywhere, even to the towers to sleep, she was the one to  
tell the others. When they wanted or needed something, she was  
the one to ask. This required her to alternate between being  
Very Serious as a leader, and her more normal state of playful  
wonder. He had the feeling whatever had come up required the  
Very Serious attitude.  
"We need to talk." Very Serious indeed.  
"Of course. What would you like to talk about?"  
"Why did you awaken us?" He heard Demona in her voice,  
demanding, always demanding.  
He composed his answer mentally before speaking. "I wanted  
to make up for the past. I created Thailog. He created you.  
That makes you my responsibility."  
"Is that all?"  
"No." He had made a promise to himself to be honest with  
them, except on one point alone, that being the location of their  
former leader. Even that he would tell them when they were  
ready. "I was lonely. I thought having the group of you around  
the castle might be a way of lessening that."  
"Did it?"  
He smiled. "Very much so."  
She returned the smile. "Good." She rested her head  
against his leg, a strangely affectionate gesture from one so  
young. Then she surprised him again, raising her hand to rest  
beside her head, and tracing small circles with her talon on his  
knee. She moved her hand to the back of his knee, and started  
tracing upwards.  
He stopped her hand. "Delilah, what are you doing?"  
She raised her head, met his eyes with her own smoke-filled  
gaze. "Didn't you like it? I can do other things instead." Her  
other hand settled higher up on his thigh.  
He was getting a very bad feeling about this. "Delilah,  
don't do this."  
She was confused. "But you woke us up. I must repay you  
for giving us life."  
"Is that what Thailog told you?"  
"He did not have to tell me."  
Of course not. She'd been programmed with the information  
from the vat. Damn Anton. No, he was the one who programmed  
Thailog. He damned himself.  
"You don't have to repay me. I told you, I did it because I  
chose to do it."  
"To ease your loneliness."  
"Yes."  
"But that is what I want to do. You are still lonely. You  
made us happy by giving us another chance. I will make you happy  
now." She exchanged her perplexed look for a more coy one. As  
if a furnace had switched on somewhere, the room grew warmer.  
Fast.  
Over the centuries, he had occasionally been struck by her  
statue's resemblance to Elisa. Oh yes, he could see traces of both  
her mothers in her face and form. Thailog had created what in his  
twisted mind must be the perfect mate. By his genes, he was  
Goliath, but by his programming, he was far more David's own son,  
and Anton's. That implied Delilah would have a healthy dose of Fox  
in her, perhaps not genetically, but emotionally. He looked for  
those hints now, still holding her hands still.  
"Don't you want me?" she asked in a breathy voice.  
"That's not the point," he said firmly.  
She pulled away from him, hurt clearly written on her pretty  
face. He thought she might run, but instead she curled into a  
ball. "I - I'm sorry," she said. "You said, and you were ...  
Thailog was right."  
He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he asked anyway,  
"About what?"  
"He said no one would love a hybrid except him, that I was  
lucky he wanted me. And I was. He loved me, and now he's gone,  
and even our new master doesn't want to love me."  
He sucked in a deep breath. "He said that?"  
She nodded. In a minute, she was going to start crying.  
David expelled his breath, no longer regretting his deal with  
Demona. Hell, at the moment, he was ready to shatter the bastard  
himself, reckoning or no reckoning.  
"Delilah, that's not love. If we were to ... "  
"Have sex?" she asked.  
"Umm ... yes. It wouldn't be love. At best, it would be  
misguided gratitude, and at worst, another form of slavery. It  
would be terribly wrong, on levels I can't even begin to explain  
to you. Just by waking you up, I have a kind of power over you,  
never mind that I'm partly responsible for creating you in the  
first place. That kind of power should emnever/em be mistaken for  
love. Love is for two people who are equals." He thought again  
of Fox, felt a stab he'd thought he'd lost.  
She sniffed; this wasn't working. "Pygmalion fell in love  
with Galatea." Of course Thailog would program her with that myth.  
"Pygmalion was in love with the goddess he fashioned her to  
resemble. He loved the dream of her, not the reality. Trust me,  
you don't want to be loved for what someone thinks they can make  
you. You want ... you deserve to be loved by someone who knows  
who you are, everything, and who wants you for that."  
"You know who I am." She returned her hand to its former  
place, forcing him to again remove it.  
"Yes. And I do love you for who you are." Her face lit up.  
"You're like my daughter, in a way."  
"Granddaughter." She tried the word, didn't appear to like it.  
"Yes," he said, and placed his hand on her head, moved it to  
touch her face tenderly. "You are like my granddaughter, and I am  
therefore obliged to kill any dirty old man who even thinks about  
you funny." He grinned, and hoped she would catch his joke.  
"But you had a bath today."  
Hello brick wall. "That's not what I meant. I need to  
protect you from things you don't understand yet, including me."  
"So I can find an equal?"  
"Yes."  
Her face grew long. "I have no equal. In all the world, I  
am the only one like me."  
He had no answer for her. She would have to find her own  
path, but he would be there with her on the journey. "The sun  
will rise soon. You'll need to sleep. We can talk about this  
later."  
"All right," she said, and got to her feet. She ambled to  
the doorway, all child until she turned around. "But I was  
right. You are still lonely," she said in a woman's voice, and  
walked up the stairs.  
He returned to his datapad, stopped when he noticed he  
wasn't seeing the numbers.  
Hadn't the thought of her been a part of the reason he'd  
woken them? She was beautiful, and she was kind, and if she  
wasn't Fox, she was in part both Elisa and Demona, both of whom  
he'd admired in more than one fashion. During the years, he had  
often spent hours simply watching her, wondering what it might be  
like to free her from her stone. He had even run that myth  
through his mind, late at night, felt the solid rock come to warm  
life beneath his touch.  
The chance had come and he'd turned her down.  
Because ...  
Because.  
Because love took years to grow. Because taking her to his  
bed would be like taking a child. Even if she had been mentally  
an adult, it would be wrong. He agreed with the reasons he'd  
given her, that he had too much control over her, that she might  
even come to resent him later because of it. The more he grew to  
knew her, the more he knew he could never hurt her that way. He  
did love her, as he loved all five of them; the kindest thing he  
could do for her now was to turn her down, let her discover what  
love was with someone who wasn't her master, or her savior.  
Then his thoughts turned to her parting words. And stopped.

* * *

He was dying. He felt the warm light inside of him, the  
part of him he knew to be David Xanatos, slipping like sand into  
a quiet darkness. Nothing could be done. Not a pill, not a  
spell, not a new body. In a short time, perhaps a day, perhaps  
a few hours, he would cease to exist. Utterly. Completely. He  
had met gods in his day, but he honestly didn't expect any of them  
to be waiting to catch his spirit like some etherial butterfly.  
He would gasp his last, and then there would be nothing.  
"Fox ... " He reached out, trying to take her hand, unable  
to see it anymore.  
"I'm here." The pressure of her touch against his own  
brought back memories. The first touch. The first kiss. The  
first night in her arms. The first time he'd held Alex.  
He struggled for words, to express what he needed to say to  
her before the illness defeated him. "You are everything," he  
whispered.  
Her other hand joined the first, wrapping around his  
tenderly.  
There was noise, muttered conversation beyond his hearing.  
Her voice returned, less certain. "Owen wants to talk to  
you alone."  
"Hurry back," he mouthed. He didn't know if she could hear  
him. With another touch, this time of lips to his cheek, she was  
gone as if she'd never existed.  
There was silence. Had Owen gone after all, leaving him  
alone to perish?  
"Are you there?"  
"Yes." The voice, beloved as the rest, sounded sad even to  
his own ears, an echo of the past.  
"I'm glad you came back." The words took more effort than  
he'd thought. He rested several moments, waiting for a response,  
any response. Even with his senses turning off one by one, his  
mind remained clear. Owen had needed to speak with him. "Tell  
me. I don't have time to wait."  
There was another long empty time. "I can give you time."  
"Time ... "  
"Immortality, my friend. I can grant it to you."  
He could have it? The dream? Live to see Alexander's  
marriage, hold his grandchildren? Need he even ask?  
A future memory touched him, with visions of himself no  
older than now, kneeling beside two graves; he was older than  
time and so alone, and hadn't the Puck lost his powers? How dare  
this self-righteous Child offer him that kind of hell?  
Strength flooded back into his arms, his vision to his eyes.  
He reached out, wrapped his hands around Owen's neck, and  
squeezed until he held tendons crack and give way ...

* * *

He sat up in bed, panting, shaking, clutching the blankets  
like a little boy.  
The nightmare had come back, just when he'd thought he'd  
banished it from himself for good. Over and over, he lay dying;  
over and over, he was offered the gift. Each time, his mind  
cried out to turn it away, refuse the offer, die a man.  
But he hadn't, had he?  
Given the chance, he'd clung to life like fraying twine in  
his fingers. He'd accepted the gift, had felt the blood flowing  
in his veins strong and free just minutes later. He'd sat up,  
called for Fox, held her for the longest time. His recovery had  
been hailed as a miracle. At Alexander's wedding, just a month  
later, he'd stood proudly at the front with Samantha's parents  
and Fox. Owen had been there, too, as had the clan, and the  
hatchlings, and their friends. Alex had wanted all the beings he  
loved nearby, and Alex had loved many beings. It had been a  
glorious moment, the proudest in his life, as he watched his son  
pledge eternal love to the young woman before him.  
Eternity had lasted all of two years.  
The battle had been swift, brutal. Oberon had seen  
Alexander as a threat to his authority, being of the Queen's  
line, and had taken it into his head to fight him. Alex still had  
his powers, but something fundamental had changed; no longer immortal,  
his frail human body could not withstand the blows.  
David had watched, entrapped in the first moments of the fight  
by his three sisters-in-law, unable to help, unable to move, forced  
to observe as his son was struck down, and the others who'd gone to  
his defense killed with him by the King and his mad daughters.  
His mind's eye had replayed the scene to him nightly for  
centuries: Fox, her body twitching with the residuals of energy  
she'd absorbed when she'd touched their son; Goliath and Elisa,  
caught by stray shards of magic from the Sisters as they defended  
their father, vanishing from sight forever. Lexington, burned and  
mutilated; Broadway, dead by morning; the others ...  
Worst of all, worse than the sights, worse than the screams,  
above all the rest, his mind replayed one moment over and over like  
a record caught in a scratch. Oberon had appeared on the scene, his  
eyes filled with murder, already poised to attack. Owen had changed  
into his alter-ego, had flown between Oberon and Alexander, had said,  
frightened, stammering:  
"This was not our agreement!"  
Oberon had turned to him, regarded him as he might a  
particularly annoying mayfly. "Really, Puck. You should know  
better than to make an agreement with the King of the Tricksters."  
And the attack had begun.  
When it was over, when the wounded and the dead lay  
intermixed, the Sisters let him go free. He'd run, trying to  
overtake the fleeing souls before they departed his life for all  
time, but when he reached Alex, when he reached Fox, they were  
gone. He'd taken her limp form into his arms, held her against  
his body willing life back into her, knowing it was impossible,  
dying inside with the effort. His eyes had risen, had met those  
of the man he'd trusted with everything he'd ever loved, had seen  
regret and guilt reflect back at him.  
Before he could act, Oberon had commanded the portal return,  
had beckoned his daughters and grabbed his servant. The doorway  
closed behind them, leaving him alone with the dead and dying.  
He hadn't seen a member of the Third Race since then, save the  
poor Bean Sidhe, mourning her own mortal lover. Angela for reasons  
of her own had taken her son, Samson, with her back to Avalon.  
Samantha had given birth a few weeks later to twin boys. She  
told David in no uncertain terms they would be raised by her as humans,  
that he wasn't welcome in their lives, that a magical heritage hadn't  
saved their father. He couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth as  
he now knew it: how Alexander had surrendered his immortality to grow  
old with her, how he should be dead, and Alexander holding his own tiny  
sons.  
Funny how life worked out sometimes.  
He lay back down on his bed, pulling the covers close.  
Maybe he would be lucky and not dream this time. Maybe.

* * *

David stood at the top of the tower, where once Goliath roosted  
by day, and looked out over what had become of his city.  
There were yet clouds below his castle, but no longer were  
they tinged with the smoky hint of pollution. Atmospheric  
filters, and plain common sense, had finally eradicated the major  
problems plaguing the air and the ground and the sea. The breath  
he took in was clean, pure. It wasn't quite the same, he mused.  
When there still had been such things as movies, he'd heard a line  
that called back to him, although the actor who'd spoken it had gone  
to dust hundreds of years ago: "I don't trust air I can't see."  
Perhaps it hadn't been quite that bad.  
He tried smiling, and failed. Tonight wasn't a smiling kind  
of night. He touched his left hand absently. Not a smiling kind  
of night at all. The anniversary had come; not his, for November  
had already appeared and gone quietly. This was the other anniversary,  
the one that had given him centuries of nightmares.  
He'd sent the kids out. They were safe in this new world,  
far safer than they had ever been in the old. Beings of a dozen  
races walked or slithered the streets below. A set of wings was  
no more unusual than pointed ears.  
He suddenly pictured Oberon taking a stroll down the 5th  
Avenue of today. No one would give him a second glance. Oh, but  
that would annoy His Obnoxiousness beyond belief! Maybe that was  
why he'd reopened the passage between the worlds. If he wanted to  
teach his Children humility again, what better way than to introduce  
them to people who would look at them, shrug, and keep walking?  
Most of them, anyway.  
His knuckles dug into the aged stone of the parapet, as he  
shifted his grip on the dagger. Pure iron it was, deadly for any  
of Oberon's Children who might feel it slide between their ribs,  
or for one whose immortality had been stolen from one of them. He'd  
had it made two days after Alexander's birth, for use in case of  
unwanted visits from his in-laws. After his son's death, he'd kept  
it with him, oft times taking it out, watching the dull shine, running  
the blade idly against his wrist until the burning sensation from holding  
the metal too long forced him to set it down again. Using that knife to  
break the circle, now several months past, had been his way of finding  
some good for it, then setting the dagger aside forever.  
This evening he'd taken it out again.  
Tonight was a ghost night. The wind, always stronger up here  
than down in the streets, made every hinge and tree branch creak  
with the whispers of magic. The warm breeze was dead silent in its task,  
but loud with apprehension of what yet could come. Since the children had  
left, several times he'd sworn he'd heard footsteps behind him, only to  
discover the incongruous sight of scattered husks of leaves, fallen dry in  
the height of a humid New York summer.  
Fox's voice was long-stilled in his mind, but it wasn't the  
only song of the past begging his attention. On this night, the  
blade before him spoke just as clearly without making any more sound  
than did the air itself.  
He felt a presence at his back, did not turn to greet it.  
"I knew you would come."  
"Once I was allowed out, how could I not?" The human voice  
rather than the fay spoke to him. David flared with anger at  
himself; he'd pictured the confrontation to be with the fairy  
side, knew he could gather his pain into one tight ball and hurl  
it at that smug face. He was less certain he could do that to  
the human side, although he knew the only difference was in the  
form, not the spirit.  
"I can think of reasons why you couldn't," he answered  
simply.  
As from long ago, there was a lingering pause before the  
other replied, "Alexander didn't want to live forever. He saw  
what it had done to Demona and Macbeth. He chose to become  
mortal, so that he didn't have to outlive Samantha or his  
children."  
"I knew that years ago. You knew it, too, and you used him.  
You used me. You knew I was dying, that I would do anything to  
live again. How many pieces of silver did Oberon promise you to do  
the transfer?"  
He heard a sharp intake of air, knew he'd struck hard.  
"You. Don't. Know." More emotion filled the three words  
than he'd seen in a lifetime from the other's human form.  
"Try me."  
"You wanted immortality. You didn't know what it was like,  
didn't know what it was to suddenly be bound to one existence,  
one place, for all eternity. Unless you have changed yourself  
into an eagle and dived down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon  
just to pull up at the last moment, unless you have called the  
dance for the lives and energies of a city, unless you have  
created your own world out of illusions and set it to life, you  
have emno/em concept of what it is like to lose that."  
"I know what it's like to lose."  
"I gave you what you wanted."  
"You took from me what I needed most."  
A whisper: "It wasn't supposed to be that way. He promised  
me he would allow Alexander to grow old in peace, and with you  
immortal, he would offer the same to Fox to please his Lady  
Wife."  
Another question, one that had been plaguing him since the  
beginning of things, returned to mind. "Why didn't she step in?  
Why didn't she stop it?"  
"He didn't tell her he was going. By the time she found out  
what he had done, it was too late."  
He could accept that, but not the rest. "He killed her  
daughter and her grandson, and she stayed married to him?"  
"No. Why do you think he closed Avalon off? She divorced  
him a second time, but he would not allow her to leave."  
"But the barriers are down again. You're here."  
"Not even Oberon can bind Titania forever."  
That felt like the truth. His mother-in-law was the most  
formidable being he'd ever encountered. They were not here,  
however, to discuss his mother-in-law.  
"I hated you. Every time I looked into the mirror, I cursed  
at you. I don't care if Oberon doublecrossed you. You made a  
deal that cost me my two reasons for living."  
"There is nothing I can say or do to make up for that." He  
heard the grief, for the first time wondered how many times his  
former friend had also woken up screaming for the visions behind  
his eyes.  
"I wanted to die, tried to die, for longer than this  
'Federation' as they call it has been in existence. And then I  
took a clue from Macbeth and Demona, and found other reasons to  
live."  
"The clones?"  
He nodded. "They're like my children."  
"They're your grandchildren. We created Thailog. He  
created them."  
He let that pass through him, lost himself in thought. The  
past and future spoke to him. He came to a decision. "They'll  
be home soon. You should meet them."  
"That would require your not killing me in the interim."  
"I don't intend to kill you today." He turned from his  
inspection of the skyline. Sure enough, Owen stood before him as  
always, double-breasted navy suit hopelessly out of date but  
present, left fist still caught in stone. He looked as if not a  
day had passed since they'd last met, as if at any moment Fox  
might step out of the elevator just below them, her face full of  
mischief at the latest scheme the three of them had hatched.  
Could he face the thought of the past being so near? First,  
to have the clones as mirrors of the other gargoyles, now to have  
his once closest friend, who stood, waiting for whatever was to  
come next? Could he face the dark things inside of him,  
threatening to bubble up with the slightest mention of what had  
been and could not be changed? Did he even dare to dream,  
knowing the checks and balances he was still due on a cosmic  
scale, that there might finally be a return, if not to the way  
things were, then to at least to some equilibrium between what  
once was and all the potential of what was yet to be?  
He heard the soft emchink/em as the dagger slipped from his  
fingers, lay resting on the stone. The blade watched him accusingly,  
reminding him that it alone had not abandoned him these past  
centuries, that he needed to pick it up again, polish it smooth,  
keep it next to his heart as he had for so very long, let it drink  
blood for blood, for him.  
_Rust in peace_, he thought, and without another word, David  
turned from it, walked past Owen, went down the stairs. A few  
moments later, he heard even footsteps behind him. He paused at  
the bottom of the stairs, waiting the few seconds it took Owen to  
reach him.  
They walked into the Great Hall together.

* * *

The End


End file.
